hi,

can anyone give me suggestino on how to setup a company that accepts outsourcing supports from other companies? i'm thinking of providing one. i'm from philippines, we usually outsource support services.

Hey there Jtan,

I would be interested in the services of outsourced support companies for hosting support... Being in Asia would also be of an assistance to you, as you have an oposite time zone from america, and could provide non-office hours support....

I have thought of similar services my self, as I am located in Australia and have business in INDIA where staff are very cheap.

I would be interested in chatting further about some ideas if you like...

Private message me or add me to your instant message accounts

Regards
Andrew

This is a good subject - I'm in the UK, considering reselling nfrom next Easter - but I'd hate to cut off customers just because I were sleeping or out visiting relatives or having a day out with the kids. If I could find a reasonably cheap solution that would allow outsourced support when I'm unavaible, it would be a serious purchase consideration.

Actually...looking at this thread, an immediate idea that comes to mind is the idea of a co-operative - small hosts helping each other out.

Idea - when host knows they will be unavailable, they set up a redirect on their support@domain.com to another in the cooperative. Then a set fixed charge per e-mail replied to by the outsourced support could be offered [if necessary - something like 10 cents per e-mail, with an account building up].

The idea being that no great profit is made on e-mail support, but hosts faced with repeated questions can at least earn a small financial compensation for their service.

In fact, a hosting company may even find themselves ditching the hosting plans and going straight into support issues only!

Hmm...feedback welcome - I'm thinking aloud here.

Brian

Brian!

I think you are really on to something with an idea of a collaborative community of small hosting companies, in different time zones, willing to help each other out by doing each others support....

Obviously different companies in different countries have different markets, so competition isnt a big deal, and the benifits are huge!

I would really like to talk to you more about this idea over Instant Messenger.

I have already talked to jtan in the phillipines and he seems enthused by such an idea also...

I am in Australia btw...

Looking forward to chatting to you soon!
Add me to your instant messengers!

Andrew

I know of a company who does this. Two actually, but I've been speaking with one of them the most. His screen name is Pleskrules, one of the representatives, he may be able to help you out.

I cant find a user by that name? Do you know of any way to find out more about what he offers?

Regards
Andrew

Oh, I'm sorry. I ment his AOL screen name is Pleskrules, as far as his username on WHT, I am not sure.

kwitko -

I won't be able to begin the service yet - I'm not looking to start until perhaps Easter.

Bit rushed at the moment - but I'll see if I can maintain contact.

Bloody ISP is trying to wreck yet another reseller account.

does anyone have any standardized procedure on hosting support? or at least an outline of how things should go?

United States here, I do not run a hosting company per se, but the idea of getting something like this going looks like something that could be very popular and useful to all.

Derrick

any specifics outsourcing?

i dont think having other webhosts support your customers is such a good idea. guess why =]

Hey Rusko,

Your right and your wrong. Obviously having a team of 1000 other web hosts all supporting each other clients would be a nightmare... There would be no order, and the risks for sabotage would be great...

But, on the other hand, developing a collaborative solution which allowed 4-5 other small hosting companies, who are all friends and in different markets (i.e. different countries) to work together to provide 24/7 support (through the different time zones) is a very plausable and powerful service for the pelthora of small hosting companies around the world.

I know my self as a small hosting company I would love to work with a small group of friends, and the feedback I have been getting from others is the same.

What do you think?

Kindest Regards
Andrew

The other thing you people can do is, just get a new domain, that is not similar to your website domain, and than install one of best Helpdesk software (like perldesk) on that domain + knowledgebase & other stuff like tutorials, and redirect all your visitors from your support pages to that domain, your customer submit the ticket and all of you know & track the tickets. I think this is the good way to provide support.

I have already implemented the above strategy for my different portals. If you people need more details or help, you may contact me. I can also provide you help in providing support to your clients in odd hours.

Thanks.

Shikha

This is a good subject - I'm in the UK, considering reselling nfrom next Easter - but I'd hate to cut off customers just because I were sleeping or out visiting relatives or having a day out with the kids.

Slightly off topic, but our busiest period for UK sales is 1am to 3am UK local time, and has been for the past two years. Therefore the rationale for having staff in the UK at all is questionable unless you want them on continuous night shift.
Our US sales peak at early afternoon US time which is 5pm to 7pm our time.
If we had staff working UK office hours they would do virtually nothing.

Gordon

Hey Shikha, yes that is a good simple solution that could be set up in the immediate... But I was thinking of something a little more hitech and collaborative...

For example, the system (maybe a php/mysql set up) could enable members to form small collaborative groups and invite, ban members.

The members could set at what times they are not in the office and ask that their support messages be posted to the group during the times they are not avaliable.... (e.g. after 5pm and up until 9am)....

The companies could CC all messages to the systems email address and the system would check the time, and decide whether to post or not, according to the time received.

As far as regulating the system and fair use, a points system could be developed where by answering a question you get a POINT. This point is transferred to another person when they answer a question of yours... Like a small economy...... This way no one can take advantage.... and you can answer 50 questions on week, and next week go away for a holiday and know that you have reserves! :) :)

What do you think of ideas so far?

Regards
Andrew
The system could then accept CC's on support mails and

I hate to be a naysayer, but I would not under any conditions allow numerous other hosts to have direct access to my customers as this system would. Perhaps you could build a cooperative of 95% honorable and reputable hosts. However, the damage those others could do to your business is tremendous. I would select to go with a reputable support company before joining in such an undertaking if I were you.

Hey Incognito,

I agree completley. That is why in one of my last posts I was talking about working together with a small group (i.e. 3-4-5) of our collegues and friends online.

It is an idea for a system which would allow people that already have a trust relationship together to collaborate together to improve customer service in a win-win....

I see clearly the problems with 'competition' and 'sabotage' that could arise with such a system and therefor I dont see anonymous parties working together, or people meeting each other though the system.

But please do be a 'NAYSAYER'. Its good because now that I am thinking about such an idea and if it could really work its great to have the feedback of as many people as possible, good and bad! :)

Bye
Andrew

Good idea man!

But are you going to implement it?

Shikha

Well, I'm thinking about it! :) :) I am looking to get as much feedback as possible from as many people as possible!

The more information I get form people as to what would work for them, what wouldnt work for them, what should the service do, what shouldnt the service do, the better decision I can make on whether or not this will be a viable project.

THANKS!

Answering questions like "How do I check my email?" or "What is ftp?" is one thing. Giving out root access so serious problems can be fixed.........yikes! I think most people are honest and this probably would work without any hitches, but man, I don't think it is worth the risk. I would just suck it up and pay a professional company like bobcares or someone like that rather than risk the buddy buddy system.

Do you know the security practises of your fellow supporters? Are they going to poach your customers? Will they give bad advice that makes things worse? Will they do a restore and wipe away everyone's data when they could have just rebooted?

You can probably find a full time support person in India, Philippines, Russia, or the Ukraine for $200-$300 per month. I would think it would be smarter for a group of you to hire one person and then that one person (or people) supports everyone. Obviously this doesn't help the people over there needing a person in the US time so it is not perfect, just an idea.

Hey Bjselier,

Your right, but the way I'm thinking about it is a little different.

I envisage a system where FRIENDS (I stress friends, people who know each other well and already have a trust relationship) decide how many rights they want to give to their other friends.

I would also imagine that as far as root access goes, access would be granted to members in your collaborative team very sparingly. In fact I think most people would be smart enough to create a CHROOTED account with use of only a limited number of commands (restarting server, services etc).

I know that a lot of people wouldn¡¦t even want this, and would just give access to an ENSIM / PLESK / CPANEL RESELLER PLATFORM.

Alternatively a lot of other people may not have very good friends (hahaha!) and they would only be asked to answer basic questions like, what is the location of PERL and what does error 404 mean etc etc¡K. Those questions makes up a large % of the questions hosts get anyway. More complex questions could just be left for when the company opens up for business the next day.

Yes, hiring a support person is always a possibility. I would actually say the costing is allot higher than 300$ a month from my experience of working and meeting people in India. But certainly it is always an option¡K..

But in my case, I would be much happier to trust my out of hours support to a group of my friends and colleagues rather than some anonymous person in India¡K and I have seen these guys work before, they really aren¡¦t that bright, and I know that all they do is sit there and chat on MSN all day and get paid well to do it too (in Indian terms)! ƒº

They way I see it is that you will never be able to replace an in-house support system as far as doing the major admin on the server. It¡¦s your show and you need to run it! ƒº But there needs to be a simple and inexpensive way for small hosts to provide basic support around the clock.

Even if the people providing support don¡¦t have access to do anything other than answer the 20 most basic questions, there still is an advantage of being able to get back to the customer quickly, let them know why they are having their ¡¥complex problem¡¦ and let them know that it will be fixed in 5 hours when the main tech support staff log on.

Its about increasing the power of the SMALL HOST (the 1 server ¡V 1 man shows) to provide the services which have been out of the price range and the domain of only the bigger outfits.

What do you think now that I have explained it this way?
Please tell me more about what you think!

Everyone else, comment, comment, comment!!!

Regards
Andrew

yup it's true you can get US$300 here in manila, but if we do it in medium scale we can have it operated at US$250 per month

jtan, yeah, I thought so. Obviously it might be hit or miss with a few employees but at that price, it is probably worth the try.

have been running an off-shore development company for three years now. I am in Chicago and my employees are in Eastern Europe. Everybody that works in my company is great and I have been very very lucky.

Regarding the initial post, I mean, if you have a few close friends that also run web hosting companies, sure, go for it, but I would still rather hire someone and slowly give them more and more responsibility and authority on the server. If you test someone out a few months and then give them full access to the server, I doubt you would ever have problems.

I was thinking about it last year. I wanted to have a model something similar to like call center. Where you don't know where call is transfered either to Malaysia, India or any Asian countries. But to run a call center and provide online support is totally diff. story.
As Shikha mentioned to have a domain and to setup a good helpdesk sounds good. As man power is cheaper in Asian countries But as a hosting compnay if you are doing only hosting business then I guess its better to take 100% managed servers than these kind of overheards per month.
Now if you talk about the Asian countries support then do you guys know the ISP's uptime. Bandwith is not good in Asian countries. And you also need extra backup for Internet connection... :D
As far as providing root acess or ENSIM,PLESK or CPANEL. You don't need to provide Admin right to the support department. You can simply create a reseller account in your server and give Reseller privileges instead of Admin. Think of -ve points you will find more than +ve's
:D:D:D:D

The other thing you people can do is, just get a new domain, that is not similar to your website domain, and than install one of best Helpdesk software (like perldesk) on that domain + knowledgebase & other stuff like tutorials, and redirect all your visitors from your support pages to that domain, your customer submit the ticket and all of you know & track the tickets. I think this is the good way to provide support.


It would be even better if you can set up sections for support tickets based on hosts though. Then restrict the access to each section, so only the host can access their own support tickets, until they decide to allow somebody to enter temporarily.

Can someone confirm that Internet Connections are not good in Asian countries? I'd like to know more about this. I never thought of that possibility before.

Thanks Jolly for bringing that up. :)

I am from Malaysia, so what do you wanna know? :) Not good as in uptime or as in bandwidth?

Originally posted by Finalz
I am from Malaysia, so what do you wanna know? :) Not good as in uptime or as in bandwidth?

Both would affect how support would be able to assist customers. So, if you could tell us if both or just one have a problem, let us know. I'm sure it could quite possibly be both ... the connection to the internet could be poor, along with the ISP being constantly down because of that or for other reason (authentication down, email pop3 down, etc).

bandwidth might not be as good compare to US or Can, but broadband is getting popular here. Most of the people living in cities have adsl here. And about uptime, I don't usually have any problem with it. Used to have some when they first launch the broadband, but it's very stable now.

Does that answer your question? :)

I would still think Philliphines or India be cheaper. Malayasia's fixed exchange rate and currency controls doesn't inspire much confidence.

And stay out of indonesia. :D

With Al-Qaeda's terrorist alliances in Philipines, and some war issues between Pakistan and India, I don't see how much confidence can that inspire you. :) In this region (I mean ASEAN, not Asia), Singapore is by far the best. No war, no terrorist, and good connectivity.

Singapore is by far the most expensive, too.
Its just a bit cheaper than US, with current exchange rates (~1.8). I'
d say staff normally ask for at least S$1200 (RM 2500+ for you, or USD ~700). Which is still expensive.

Don't suggest china, taiwan or hk, many of these don't have fantastic english.

Originally posted by kwitko
Hey Shikha, yes that is a good simple solution that could be set up in the immediate... But I was thinking of something a little more hitech and collaborative...

For example, the system (maybe a php/mysql set up) could enable members to form small collaborative groups and invite, ban members.

The members could set at what times they are not in the office and ask that their support messages be posted to the group during the times they are not avaliable.... (e.g. after 5pm and up until 9am)....

The companies could CC all messages to the systems email address and the system would check the time, and decide whether to post or not, according to the time received.

As far as regulating the system and fair use, a points system could be developed where by answering a question you get a POINT. This point is transferred to another person when they answer a question of yours... Like a small economy...... This way no one can take advantage.... and you can answer 50 questions on week, and next week go away for a holiday and know that you have reserves! :) :)

What do you think of ideas so far?

Regards
Andrew
The system could then accept CC's on support mails and

I am actually in the process of setting something extremely similar up to handle outsourced Abuse/Security work for webhosts, etc.

I can easily setup a "random domain" you can direct your customers to, and logins for various Participating hosts. Set it up for the tickets to only go to the public (members group) when the Admin is out of office, otherwise have them go to your general support.

On the security side, I was going to charge a per ticket fee, on the "Support collaborative" Side I was just thinking maybe I might set this up for free atleast at first see what kind of resources it sucks out of me and if not a large number,suck it up as It would definately build relationships between myself and possible new security clients, which is my main area of interest...


if anyone is interested or wants to participate in setting it up any thing they would like to see let me know

yeah true :) they are very expensive...